Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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But The Image
Of This Action Becomes Enlarged In The Mind When We Study The
Relations Which Link Together Volcanoes
Of the same group; for
instance, those of Naples and Sicily, of the Canary Islands,* of
the Azores, of the
Caribbee islands of Mexico, of Guatimala, and of
the table-land of Quito; when we examine either the reactions of
these different systems of volcanoes on one another, or the
distance at which, by subterranean communication, they
simultaneously convulse the earth. (I have already observed
(Chapter 1.2) that the whole group of the Canary Islands rises, as
we may say, above one and the same submarine volcano. Since the
sixteenth century, the fire of this volcano has burst forth
alternately in Palma, Teneriffe, and Lancerote. Auvergne presents a
whole system of volcanoes, the action of which has now ceased; but
in the middle of a system of active volcanoes, for instance, in
that of Quito, we must not consider as an extinguished volcano a
mountain, the crater of which is obstructed, and through which the
subterraneous fire has not issued for ages. Etna, the Aeolian
Isles, Vesuvius, and Epomeo; the peak of Teyde, Palma, and
Lancerote; St. Michael, La Caldiera of Fayal, and Pico; St.
Vincent, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe; Orizava, Popocatepetl, Jorullo,
and La Colima; Bombacho, the volcano of Grenada, Telica, Momotombo,
Isalco, and the volcano of Guatimala; Cotopaxi, Tunguragua,
Pichincha, Antisana, and Sangai, belong to the same system of
burning volcanoes; they are generally ranged in rows, as if they
had issued from a crevice, or vein not filled up; and, it is very
remarkable, that their position is in some parts in the general
direction of the Cordilleras, and in others in a contrary
direction.)
The study of volcanoes may be divided into two distinct branches;
one, simply mineralogical, is directed to the examination of the
stony strata, altered or produced by the action of fire; from the
formation of the trachytes or trap-porphyries, of basalts,
phonolites, and dolerites, to the most recent lavas:
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